A committee of the Western Cape legislature has cleared former provincial transport and public works minister Mcebisi Skwatsha of claims that he failed to disclose an interest in two companies.
Skwatsha is the African National Congress’s (ANC) Western Cape provincial secretary.
The committee, chaired by ANC MPL Chris Stali, said in a report released on Monday that Skwatsha had had interests in Jama Security Services and GAEB Game Farming.
However, there was no obligation on him to declare these in the register of members’ interests as he was not an MPL at the time — early 2004 –that he resigned from the companies.
The complaint was lodged by Democratic Alliance chief whip in the legislature Alan Winde. It followed controversy over a decision by the then ANC-controlled City of Cape Town to award Jama a slice of a R100-million security contract.
The contract was challenged in the Cape High Court in 2005, but the award to Jama was later reconfirmed.
ANC chief whip Max Ozinsky said in reaction that the finding confirmed the confidence the ANC expressed in Skwatsha at the time the allegation first surfaced.
”Since then sections of the media have directed unfounded allegations and innuendo at Mr Skwatsha, which served to place enormous and unfair pressure on him and his family. It would be both correct and proper for them to apologise,” he said.
Skwatsha is currently back in the news over allegations — which he has denied — of improper intervention in the sale by the province of a R44-million tract of land in the Cape Town city bowl. — Sapa